Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting '98 Contour Sport v6 ATX: no forward gears, only R

I just spent a good two or three hours reading through all the posts on this site having to do with transmissions, and I'm worried as all hell!

My '98 contour Sport, V6, 2.5 L Duratec I think, just hit 80,000 miles and suddenly lost all its forward gears. It would only engage and go into reverse, but when I shift into D, 1, or 2, nothing would happen. Well, that's not true -- at first, I still had 1st and 2nd gears, but after shifting it back into Park and then into the forward gears again, they were completely gone and wouldn't engage either. It was as if I suddenly had 3 gears of Neutral. The shift "button" (dunno what to call it, the big thing that you depress in order to change gears) wasn't too responsive, either -- it felt loose, and the usual resistance wasn't there. It was driving fine just minutes before I parked and turned off the car.

We checked the Trans fluid level with the car in idle after shifting into all the gears, which was at a good level, but it was brown.

This car's all I've got -- I just finished grad school and am getting started as a freelancer. Even if it costs $2500 to repair, I'll have to suck it up and pay it because I won't be able to get credit to get a new or even decent used car. Wah.

I took it to the same one that replaced my rack & pinion a couple of months ago, and they did a decent job at an ok price ($800, with 2 year/20k mile warranty on the work), but they didn't exactly inform me about why it needed to be completely replaced (they found the leak after 3 tries and initially, the UV dye didn't show any leakage).

So, any advice or insight anyone has to offer would be great, especially in dealing with the auto shop, what questions to ask, what to ask them to check for, etc.

Thanks...

Hi
Im assuming its an automatic.
Well i did some searching too and i found someone with an automatic who lost their reverse and their drive,1,and 2. They took it to a shop and it was the shop said it was the torque converter that broke. As for the shop im not sure what to tell them, someone else with a manual transmission said they told the shop to check the pressure. But that was a manual however. Sorry i dont know much with transmissions. Im sure someone else will say something though. Good luck and keep us posted!